<< May 11|         HISTORY “4” “2”DAY         |May 13 >>
Events, deaths, births, of 12 MAY

[For 12 May Julian go to  Gregorian date: 1583~1699: May 221700s: May 231800s: May 241900~2099: May 25]
ALTERNATE SITES    ALL FOR 030512      ANY DAY  OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY     ART “4” MAY 12
• Kampuchea seizes Mayaguez... • Lindbergh baby found dead... • Germany invades France... • Bloody battle at Spotsylvania... • Painter~poet Rossetti is born... • There was a limerick writer... • Unsafe at any speed... • Berlin blockade lifted... • Prodigy sold... • Amazon sold... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • Hitler's envoy shot dead... • to move MOVE... • Blackmun to Supreme Court... • George VI crowned king... • Radio patented... • Mine strike... • Mexican war: 1st battle... • Israeli copters kill 2 Palestinians... • Difference Engine needs money... • Fur trader heads West... • A Shau Valley battle... • US VP visits Vietnam...
On a May 12:
1998 The attorney general of Texas says that he might drop his months of investigation into Microsoft's business practices (which Texas technology companies in Texas claim would hurt them)
1997 Barnes and Noble sues Amazon       ^top^
      One day before launching its own online bookstore, Barnes and Noble sued Amazon.com, challenging Amazon's claim to be the "world's largest bookstore." Barnes and Noble claimed to stock far more books than Amazon.com. The suit also argued that Amazon "wasn't a bookstore at all" but rather a book broker.
1996 IBM and Sears sell Prodigy       ^top^
      IBM and Sears sign a deal to sell Prodigy to an investment group called International Wireless.
      The two companies cofounded the online company in 1984 and invested more than $1 billion in the venture. The buyout was welcomed by Prodigy's management, who received an ownership stake in the company.
1986 Fred Markham (US), unpaced and unaided by wind, is first to pedal 105 km/h on a level course, Big Sand Flat, California.
1985 Preparing to move MOVE       ^top^
      In Philadelphia, the police begins evacuating people from their Osage Avenue homes in order to prepare for an operation against MOVE, a radical cult group that had assembled a large arsenal. By the end of the confrontation, 11 people were dead and 61 homes had been burned down.
      The roots of the 1985 incident date back to 1978 when a confrontation between MOVE and the police left Officer James Ramp dead. Several innocent MOVE members were convicted of murder, enraging other members. Leader John Africa began a counterattack on Christmas Eve, 1983. At the MOVE headquarters at 6221 Osage Avenue, members set up several loudspeakers and began shouting profanities at their neighbors. Even more ominously, MOVE began assembling a cache of weapons and building bunkers in their row house.
     Everything comes to a head in May 1985 when Mayor W. Wilson Goode orders police to raid the MOVE headquarters. Authorities soon realize that there is very little they could do to remove MOVE members from their entrenched position.
      At about 17:30 on 13 May, a small bomb is dropped on the roof of the building in an attempt to destroy the bunker. This proved disastrous, as the roof was covered with tar and gas, and a blistering fire broke out. It took the fire department an hour to begin extinguishing the fire. By this time, it was raging out of control. In the ensuing chaos, six adults and five children inside the MOVE home were killed. By the time the fire had been contained, nearly an entire block of homes in Philadelphia had burned down. Much like the Waco, Texas, raid of the Branch Davidians eight years later, the authorities came under heavy criticism for their harsh handling of the confrontation.
1984 S Afr prisoner Nelson Mandela sees his wife for first time in 22 years
1982 In Fatima Portugal, a Spanish priest with a bayonet is stopped prior to his attempt to attack Pope John Paul II
1980 first nonstop crossing of US via balloon.
1975 US ship Mayaguez seized by Khmer Rouge.       ^top^
      The US freighter Mayaguez is captured by communist government forces in Cambodia, setting off an international incident. The US response to the affair indicated that the wounds of the Vietnam War still ran deep. On 12 May 1975, the US freighter Mayaguez and its 39-man crew was captured by gunboats of the Cambodian navy. Cambodia had fallen to communist insurgents, the Khmer Rouge, in April 1973. The Cambodian authorities imprisoned the US crew, pending an investigation of the ship and why it had sailed into waters claimed by Cambodia.
      The response of the United States government was quick. President Gerald Ford called the Cambodian seizure of the Mayaguez an "act of piracy" and promised swift action to rescue the captured US sailors. In part, Ford's aggressive attitude to the incident was a by-product of the US failure in Vietnam. In January 1973, US forces had withdrawn from South Vietnam, ending years of a bloody and inconclusive attempt to forestall communist rule of that nation. In the time since the US withdrawal, a number of conservative politicians and intellectuals in the United States had begun to question the US's "credibility" in the international field, suggesting that the country's loss of will in Vietnam now encouraged enemies around the world to challenge the US with seeming impunity. The Cambodian seizure of the Mayaguez appeared to be just such a challenge. On 14 May, President Ford ordered the bombing of the Cambodian port where the gunboats had come from and sent Marines to attack the island of Koh Tang, where the prisoners were being held. Unfortunately, the military action was probably unnecessary. The Cambodian government was already in the process of releasing the crew of the Mayaguez and the ship. Forty-one US persons died, most of them in an accidental explosion during the attack. Most people in the US, however, cheered the action as evidence that the United States was once again willing to use military might to slap down potential enemies.
1971 A Shau Valley battle begins.       ^top^
      The first major battle of Operation Lam Son 720 takes place as North Vietnamese forces hit the same South Vietnamese 500~man marine battalion twice in one day. Each time, the Communists were pushed back after heavy fighting. Earlier, the South Vietnamese reportedly destroyed a North Vietnamese base camp and arms production facility in the A Shau Valley. On 19 May, in a six-hour battle, South Vietnamese troops engaged the communists. Three Allied helicopters and a reconnaissance plane were downed by enemy ground fire. The fighting, air strikes, and artillery fire continued in the A Shau Valley through 23 May; the South Vietnamese claimed the capture of more communist bunker networks and the destruction of large amounts of supplies and ammunition.
1970 Blackmun confirmed to US Supreme Court       ^top^
      The Senate confirmed President Richard M. Nixon’s nomination of Federal Circuit Judge Harry A. Blackmun to the US Supreme Court. Blackmun, born in Nashville, Illinois, in 1908, was regarded as a staunch conservative when he joined the nation’s highest court as an associative justice in 1970. Widely praised for his scholarly and carefully drafted opinions, Blackmun was initially allied with other Republican appointees on the court, but all that changed in 1973 when the Roe vs. Wade decision, legalizing abortion, was authored by Blackmun and thus made him one of the most vilified Supreme Court members in US history.
      During the 1980s, Blackmun became a champion of separation between church and state, and often cast liberal votes in cases pitting individual liberties against governmental authority. By the time he retired in 1994, he was considered the high court’s most liberal justice, although he often claimed that the court’s politics had changed more than his own. He died in 1999 at the age of ninety.
1967 H Rap Brown replaces Stokely Carmichael as chairman of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
1965 Israel and West Germany exchange letters beginning diplomatic relations
1961 Botvinnik wins world chess championship for 3rd time
1961 US Vice President visits South Vietnam.       ^top^
      Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon during his tour of Asian countries. Calling Diem the "Churchill of Asia," he encouraged the South Vietnamese president to view himself as indispensable to the United States and promised additional military aid to assist his government in fighting the communists. On his return home, Johnson echoed domino theorists, saying that the loss of Vietnam would compel the United States to fight "on the beaches of Waikiki" and eventually on "our own shores." With the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Johnson became president and inherited a deteriorating situation in South Vietnam. Over time, he escalated the war, ultimately committing more than 500'000 US soldiers to Vietnam.
1956 East Pakistan struck by cyclone and tidal waves.
1949 Berlin blockade lifted,       ^top^
 defeated by the Berlin Airlift. In June of 1948, the USS.R. imposed blockades on routes to Berlin through Soviet occupation zones in East Germany, due it said, to Allied intransigence on the future of the country. Although land and water routes were blocked, the Soviets could not risk shooting down planes, and a massive airlift of coal, food, and supplies was undertaken by the West. Flights were made around the clock, and at the height of the Berlin Airlift, planes were landing in the city every three minutes.
     The Soviet Union lifts its 11-month blockade against West Berlin. The blockade had been broken by a massive US-British airlift of vital supplies to West Berlin's two million citizens. At the end of World War II, Germany was divided into four sectors administered by the four major Allied powers: the USSR, the United States, Britain, and France. Berlin, the German capital, was likewise divided into four sectors, even though it was located deep within the Soviet sector of eastern Germany. The future of Germany and Berlin was a major sticking point in postwar treaty talks, especially after the United States, Britain, and France sought to unite their occupation zones into a single economic zone. In March 1948, the Soviet Union quit the Allied Control Council governing occupied Germany over this issue.
      In May, the three Western powers agreed to the imminent formation of West Germany, a nation that would exist entirely independent of Soviet-occupied eastern Germany. The three western sectors of Berlin were united as West Berlin, which was to be under the administration of West Germany. On 20 June, as a major step toward the establishment of a West German government, the Western powers introduced a new Deutsche mark in West Germany and West Berlin. The Soviets condemned this move as an attack on the East German currency and on June 24 began a blockade of all rail, road, and water communications between Berlin and the West. The four-power administration of Berlin had ceased with the unification of West Berlin, the Soviets said, and the Western powers no longer had a right to be there. With West Berlin's food, fuel, and other necessities cut off, the Soviets reasoned, it would soon have to submit to Communist control.
      Great Britain and the United States responded by initiating the largest airlift in history, flying 278'288 relief missions to the city during the next 14 months, resulting in the delivery of 2'326'406 tons of supplies. As the Soviets had cut off power to West Berlin, coal accounted for over two-thirds of the material delivered. In the opposite direction, return flights transported West Berlin's industrial exports to the West. Flights were made around the clock, and at the height of the Berlin airlift, in April 1949, planes were landing in the city every minute. Tensions were high during the airlift, and three groups of US strategic bombers were sent as reinforcements to Britain while the Soviet army presence in eastern Germany increased dramatically. The Soviets made no major effort to disrupt the airlift. As a countermeasure against the Soviet blockade, the Western powers also launched a trade embargo against eastern Germany and other Soviet bloc countries. On 12 May 1949, the Soviets abandoned the blockade, and the first British and US convoys drove though 180 km of Soviet-occupied Germany to reach West Berlin. On 23 May, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was formally established. On 07 October, the German Democratic Republic, a Communist state, was proclaimed in East Germany. The Berlin airlift continued until 30 September, in an effort to build up a year's supply of essential goods for West Berlin in the event of another Soviet blockade. Another blockade did not occur, but Cold War tensions over Berlin remained high, culminating in the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
1943 Axis forces in North Africa surrender
1940 Germany invades France       ^top^
      Two days after the German Wehrmacht stormed into Belgium, Holland, and the Netherlands, the Nazi invasion of France begins. In a lightning strike, German forces simply out-flank the northwest corners of the Maginot Line, an impregnable defense of France's border with Germany, which did not extend to the France's borders with Luxembourg or Bellgium.
      Within a week, Dutch and Belgian resistance had ended, making the Allied defense of France untenable. On 26 May, with German tanks racing across Western Europe, the British initiated Operation Dynamo — the total evacuation of Allied forces from the beach at Dunkirk. The ten-day evacuation, during which 340'000 British, French, and Belgian troops were brought to the safety of the British isle, was constantly harassed by attacks from the German air force. All British citizens in possession of sea-worthy vessels were asked to lend their ships to the effort, and all but 40'000 of the Allied soldiers who massed at Dunkirk escaped capture.
      With Western Europe abandoned by its defenders, the German army swept through the rest of France, and on 14 June, Paris fell to the Nazis. Eight days later, France, now under Philippe Pétain, signed an armistice with the Nazis at Compiègne, and Germany occupied half the country and annnexed Alsace-Lorraine, leaving the other half in the hands of their puppet French rulers. In July, Pétain established his regime at Vichy, in unoccupied France.
      The Vichy government under Pétain and later Pierre Laval collaborated with the Nazis, and French citizens suffered on both sides of the divided nation. On 06 June 1944, liberation of France began with the successful Allied landed at Normandy.
1938 In Holland, the four-day convention at Utrecht ended, at which the Provisional Constitution for the World Council of Churches was adopted.
1937 George VI crowned       ^top^
      At London’s Westminster Abbey, George VI and his consort, Lady Elizabeth, are crowned king and queen of the United Kingdom during a coronation ceremony dating back over a millennium.
      George, who studied at Dartmouth Naval College and served during World War I, ascended to the throne after his elder brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated on 11 December 1936. Edward, the first English monarch to voluntarily relinquish the throne, agreed to give up his title in the face of widespread criticism of his desire to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, a US divorcee.
      In 1939, George became the first British monarch to visit the US and Canada, and during World War II, he worked to keep up British morale by visiting bombed areas, inspecting war plants, and touring combat zones. In addition, George and Elizabeth, and their two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, remained in bomb-damaged Buckingham Palace during the war, and made a number of important morale-boosting radio broadcasts, for which George overcame a speech impediment.
      After the war, the royal family made a state visit and tour of South Africa, but a planned tour of Australia and New Zealand had to be postponed indefinitely when the king fell ill in 1949. Despite his illness, George continued to perform state duties until his death in 1952. He was succeeded by his first-born, who was crowned Queen Elizabeth II on 02 June 1953.
1932 Lindbergh baby found dead       ^top^
      The twenty-month-old son of Charles A. Lindbergh, who had made the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in 1927, is found dead in the woods near the Lindbergh home.
      On March 1, the baby had been kidnapped from the nursery of his parents’ home in Hopewell, New Jersey. A ransom note found on the scene of the crime demanded $50'000 in payment for the return of Charles, Jr. Three days later, after Lindbergh involved the authorities against the kidnapper’s advice, the ransom was increased to $70'000. Dr. John F. Condon, sympathetic to Lindbergh, volunteered to intercede in the payment of the ransom, and on 02 April, at New Jersey’s St. Raymond’s Cemetery, he handed over the $70'000 as Lindbergh waited nearby in a car.
      However, the Lindbergh baby was not returned. On 12 May 1932, the body of the kidnapped baby is accidentally found, partly buried, and badly decomposed, about 7 km southeast of the Lindbergh home, 15 m from the highway, near Mount Rose, New Jersey, in Mercer County. The discovery is made by William Allen, an assistant on a truck driven by Orville Wilson. The head was crushed, there was a hole in the skull and some of the body members were missing. The body was positively identified and cremated at Trenton, New Jersey, on 13 May 1932. The Coroner's examination showed that the child had been dead for about two months and that death was caused by a blow on the head.
      Following the tragic discovery, the Lindbergh kidnapping case, already a highly publicized story, became a sensational media event as authorities launched an extensive manhunt for the guilty party, using the recorded serial numbers of the ransom money as a guide. Public outrage over the Lindbergh kidnapping led to the passing of the "Lindbergh Law" by Congress, which made the crime of kidnapping a federal offense punishable by the death penalty.
      On 19 September 1934, $14'000 of the ransom money was found in the Bronx, New York, apartment of Richard Bruno Hauptmann, a German carpenter. During the subsequent criminal trial, Hauptmann maintained his innocence, claiming that a business partner, Isador Fisch, gave him the money before returning to Germany, where he died in March 1934. On 13 February 1935, Hauptmann was convicted and, on 03 April 1936, after a series of appeals, he was executed by electrocution.
      In the years after the kidnapping, a number of people began to question Hauptmann's guilt and the quality of the criminal investigation; however, much of this criticism may have been motivated by opposition to Lindbergh following the public revelations of his Nazi sympathies.
1908 Nathan Stubblefield patents radio       ^top^
     Nathan Stubblefield obtains a patent for wireless voice transmission. Stubblefield had demonstrated his invention in 1902 in Fairmont Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when his voice was transmitted more than a mile via radio waves. However, Stubblefield was secretive about his invention and did not encourage its promotion abroad.
1902 Call for nationwide mine strike in the US.       ^top^
      By the dawn of the twentieth century, trouble was clearly brewing in the nation's coal mines. Indeed, miners had long toiled in foul conditions for paltry pay; moreover, managers often forced workers to rent space in company houses and to purchase items at company-owned stores. Duly fed up with these conditions, miners across the country held a number of strikes during the later years of the nineteenth century. The mine companies, now largely run by the US's imperious rail barons, steadfastly ignored their workers' pleas.
      The situation came to something of a boil on this day in 1902, as union chief John Mitchell raised the call for a nationwide strike; 140'000 members of the United Mine Workers heeded his charge. The ensuing strike dragged on for five months, as mine owners, firmly anticipating that the Federal government would rush to their side, smugly refused to acknowledge the coal union, or to enter negotiations.
      Meanwhile, coal prices skyrocketed, fraying the public's collective nerves and inciting calls for the government to negotiate a settlement. Though the Constitution didn't sanction intervention by the White House, President Teddy Roosevelt grew impatient and stepped in to speed up the negotiations. The mine owners rebuffed these efforts, prompting the president to threaten to hand control of the mines to the Army.
      Roosevelt's gambit proved effective and the mine owners finally sat down for a serious round of negotiations. By October of 1902, the strikers had returned to work and a newly formed Commission of Arbitration had kicked off a probe into the conditions at the nation's mines. That following spring, the Commission handed down its findings, which included recommendations of pay hikes and reduced hours for workers, and that mine owners recognize the coal union.
1898 Louisiana adopts new constitution with "grandfather clause" designed to eliminate black voters
1891 The Presbytery of New York voted to put the Rev. Dr. Charles A. Briggs, the new professor of biblical theology at Union Theological Seminary, on trial for heresy.
1885 Battle of Batoche, French Canadians rebel against Canada
1881 Treaty of Bardo, Tunis becomes a French protectorate
1870 Manitoba becomes a province of Canada
1865 Skirmish at Palmito Ranch, Texas — the last engagement of the Civil War — begins
1864 Union forces advance on the Drewry's Bluff line crossing Proctors Creek
1864 Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia continues with the fight for the Bloody Angle
1864 Butler attacks Drewry's Bluff on James River
1863 Engagement at Raymond, Mississippi
1846 First battle of the Mexican-US War.       ^top^
      One day before the US declares war, General Zachary Taylor leads US troops to victory against an attacking larger Mexican force at the Battle of Palo Alto.
      The Mexican-US War began with a dispute over the US government’s 1845 annexation of Texas, which had won independence from Mexico in 1836. In January of 1846, President James K. Polk, a strong advocate of westward expansion, ordered General Zachary Taylor to occupy disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers.
      On 18460509 word reached Washington that a US patrol had been ambushed by Mexican forces north of the Rio Grande, and on 13 May 1846, not yet aware of the battle of Palo Alto, Congress granted President James K. Polk’s request for a declaration of war, appropriated ten million dollars for the war effort, and authorized the president to call for 50'000 volunteers.
      On 09 March 1847, US forces under General Winfield Scott invaded Mexico 5 km south of Vera Cruz. Encountering little resistance from the Mexicans massed in the fortified city of Vera Cruz, by nightfall the last of Scott’s 10'000 men had come ashore without the loss of a single life. By 29 March, with very few US casualties, Scott’s forces had taken Vera Cruz and its massive fortress, San Juan de Ulua.
      On 09 April, Scott began a devastating march to Mexico City, ending on September 14, when triumphant US forces entered the Mexican capital and raised the US flag over the Hall of Montezuma.
      On 02 February 1848, representatives from the US and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, formally ending the Mexican War, recognizing Texas as part of the United States, and extending the boundaries of the United States west to the Pacific Ocean.
1832 Fur trader William Sublette heads west       ^top^
      The fur trader William Sublette leads a pack train out of Independence, Missouri, heading west for a disastrous rendezvous at Pierre's Hole, Idaho. William Sublette was the eldest of five brothers who were all associated with the fur trade. Sometime between 1816 and 1817, his parents moved their large family west from Kentucky to the frontier country of Missouri Territory. His father ran a tavern in present-day St. Charles, but he died in 1823 when Sublette was 24 years old. The following year, Sublette joined William Ashley's second fur-trading expedition up the Missouri River. Sublette quickly learned that fur trading was a dangerous occupation. Arikara Indians attacked Ashley's party of traders and killed several men, wounded others, and stole many of their supplies. Luckily, Sublette managed to escape injury.
      The next autumn, he returned to the area under the leadership of the famous mountain man Jedediah Smith. Hoping to avoid Indian attacks by breaking away from the usual river routes, Smith led his small party overland on horseback into the northern Rocky Mountains, where they blazed important new trails and rediscovered the famous South Pass. By 1826, Sublette was an experienced mountain man and one of the few men with intimate knowledge of the northern Rockies. He and several other mountain men purchased Ashley's fur trading company and helped perfect the "rendezvous," a system in which independent trappers gathered at a designated spot each summer to trade their furs in exchange for money and supplies. After four years, Sublette sold his interest in the business to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, but he continued to be the major source of supplies purchased by trappers at the rendezvous.
      On this day in 1832, Sublette leaves for a rendezvous scheduled to occur that summer at Pierre's Hole, a valley in the Grand Teton Mountains. Sublette arrived at the rendezvous point in June and he successfully traded his supplies for furs and enjoyed a reunion with his brother Milton. As the rendezvous broke up on July 17, Sublette's brother left, leading a party of trappers toward the Snake River. They had gone seven miles when they encountered a band of Gros Ventres Indians. Foolishly, one of the trappers shot a Gros Ventres chief, and a battle erupted. Alerted by a messenger, Sublette and about 200 other trappers soon arrived and joined the battle. Recognizing that the trappers outnumbered the Gros Ventres by about seven to one, Sublette decided the mountain men should attack. The Gros Ventres, however, were well entrenched and were tenacious fighters. By nightfall, they had killed 32 of the trappers and lost 26 of their own men. Sublette was wounded, though not seriously, and during the night, he and the other surviving trappers retreated. When they returned the next day, the Gros Ventres were gone. Sublette continued to work in the risky fur trade for a few more years, but he abandoned the mountains permanently by 1836. He moved to St. Louis and became a businessman, gentleman farmer, and eventually a minor Missouri politician. Sublette contracted tuberculosis in 1845 and died in a Pittsburgh Hotel while traveling to Cape May, New Jersey, to recuperate.
1829 Funds sought for Babbage's Difference Engine       ^top^
      Mathematician Charles Babbage devoted more than ten years and most of his personal fortune to building an automatic calculating machine he called the "Difference Engine." Although the project gained government support and much publicity, the machine proved extremely costly to build.
      On 12 May 1829, a group of Babbage's friends meet to find a way to help him. Together, they approach the Duke of Wellington, who agrees to give Babbage more funding. The Duke also lobbied the government for additional support. Unfortunately, after spending £17'000 of government funds and nearly the same amount from his own pocket, Babbage ran out of money and was never able to build the machine.
      In 1854, a Swedish engineer finally succeeded in constructing a Difference Engine based on Babbage's theories.
1789 Society of Saint Tammany is formed by Revolutionary War soldiers. It later becomes an infamous group of NYC political bosses
1780 Charleston, SC falls to the British (Revolutionary War)
0254 Saint Stephen I begins his reign as the 23rd pope. According to the "Liber Pontificalis," it was Stephen who instituted the rule that clerics should wear special clothes at their ministrations.
1820, the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, was born in Florence, Italy. In 1870, Manitoba entered Confederation as a Canadian province. In 1932, the body of the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was found in a wooded area of Hopewell, N.J. In 1937, Britain's King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey. In 1943, during World War II, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered. In 1949, the Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade. In 1965, West Germany and Israel exchanged letters establishing diplomatic relations. In 1970, the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harry A. Blackmun as a Supreme Court justice. In 1975, the White House announced the new Cambodian government had seized a US merchant ship, the Mayaguez, in international waters. In 1978, the Commerce Department said hurricanes would no longer be given only female names. In 1982, in Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpowered a Spanish priest armed with a bayonet who was trying to reach Pope John Paul II.
TO THE TOP
explosion aftermathDeaths which occurred on a May 12:       ^top^

2003 Jason Bentley, 35; Clifford J. Lawson, 45; and 32 other persons in terrorist explosions in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at 23:28 and within minutes thereof: three suicide car bombs in eastern suburbs at three guarded walled residential compounds (Al-Hamra, Eshbiliya, and that of the US defense contractor company Vinnell) where reside many non-Saudis. The compounds include Abdullah al-Blaidh's in the Gharnata district, one in the Ishbaliya district, and one in the Cordoba district. Among the dead are at 8 from the US (7 of them, including Bentley and Lawson, were Vinnell employees), 7 Saudis, 2 Jordanians, 2 Filipinos, 1 Lebanese, 1 Swiss, 1 Australian, 9 others are the attackers. 194 are injured, including at least 40 US persons. [one of the wrecked buildings, seen the next morning >] In the early hours of 13 May there is a smaller terrorist explosion near the headquarters of the Saudi Maintenance Company (aka Siyanco), jointly owned by Frank E. Basil Inc., of Washington, and local Saudi partners.

2003:: 55 persons as a suicide-bomb Kamaz truck destroys the two-story building of the Russian occupiers' Federal Security Service in Znamenskoye, Chechnya, and damages other buildings. Some 120 persons are injured, four of whom would die the next day.
Mrs. McGuckin2001 Michael McGuckin, from malnutrition and dehydration (according to coroner)       ^top^
     McGuckin and his family had been happy and relatively prosperous until their sawmill business went bankrupt in the 1980s. Then, in the 1990s, Michael McGuckin, who had worked at a lumber mill, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The family withdrew from the community, rejecting neighbors' offers of help. Mrs. JoAnn McGuckin struggled to care for her children and invalid husband, whose illness she blamed on chemicals sprayed on area roads. She grew increasingly paranoid about the government and refused to seek state aid, local relief workers say. The family home, near Garfield Bay, Idaho, was sold at auction in 2000 to satisfy unpaid back taxes, but the McGuckins were allowed to stay.
    [ JoAnn McGuckin is shown in this Bonner County Sheriff's booking photo taken 30 May 2001, in Sandpoint, Idaho >].
     Mr. McGuckin would be buried on 25 May and that day the family would receive some 100 kg of donated food.
    The oldest McGuckin child, Erina, 19, had left the family home after a dispute with her parents. She went to the authorities to complain of the conditions at the McGuckin home. Based on that, the police arrested Mrs. McGucking on 29 May on a warrant charging felony injury of a child and held her on held on $100'000 bail.
     Then sheriff's deputies went to the house to take the six children: Kathryn, 16; Benjamin, 15; Mary, 13; James, 11; Frederick, 9; and Jane, 8. But Benjamin yelled "Get the guns!" and set loose more than two dozen dogs. The deputies decided to wait the children out, hoping that they would run out of food. The children were believed to be well-armed and proficient with guns.
     On 01 June Benjamin went to a neighbor and the neighbor drove him to the authorities, who hoped to use him to convince the other children to surrender. On 02 June the five children relented in their five-day impasse with authorities Saturday, leaving their isolated home after negotiators promised to help the family stay together.
2001 Ala'a Jaloudi, and Mu'atasam Sabbagh, Palestinians, by Israeli rockets from helicopters, fired at a car parked near the Palestinian Authority security headquarters in Jenin, northern West Bank. Jaloudi was a police officer and Sabaa was a member of Fatah.
      The helicopter rockets were aimed at a car used by Fatah operatives in Jenin, which was parked near a PA security building. Apparently the missiles were fired at the car's owner, a PA intelligence official, who managed to escape alive. Mu'atassam Sabbagh, the head of Fatah's youth division, and Allmal Jaludi, a Palestinian policeman, were killed. Some 15 people were hurt, two seriously.
      The first missile slammed into the ground near the parked car — Sabbagh and three Fatah comrades were in the vehicle at the time. As the men tried to flee the vehicle, a second missile was fired at them, but hit a private residence instead. Pinned down by leg wounds, Sabbagh was unable to flee and was killed by a third missile. His corpse was pulverized.
     Jaludi was injured by shrapnel and died at a Jenin hospital.
      Many of those injured were children on their way home after school.
      The car's owner is Abad al Kareem Kawis, a Jenin-based PA security man. He managed to escape along with two other passengers in the car.
      Crying for vengeance, some 10'000 mourners attend the double funeral in Jenin, a few hours after the gunship attack.
     The Israeli tactics seem to do nothing but aggravate the Palestinians' hatred and will to fight.
McKnight2000 Gregory L. Julious, 20, murdered by Gregory McKnight, 23.
     Julious was a student at Kenyon College (Gambier, Ohio, 40º22'35"N 82º23'42"W). His burned and dismembered remains would be found in December 2000 on McKnight's property near Ray (39º12'13"N 82º41'01"W), Vinton County, Ohio , more than 160 km (by road, 133 km along a great circle) south of Gambier.
     On 09 December 2000 a Vinton County deputy had gone to serve McKnight court papers relating to charges of burglary of a neighbor's firearms (for which McKnight was sentenced, on 11 May 2001, to 8 years in prison [photo >]). The deputy noticed, next to a trailer on the property, the car of Emily Murray, another Kenyon College student, who was a waitress at the Pirate's Cove restaurant in Gambier, and was missing since leaving the restaurant on 03 November at 03:00, almost at the same time as McKnight, who worked in the restaurant's kitchen.
      Her body is then found, wrapped in a rug in the trailer, with one gunshot in the head.
      McKnight, a New York native, was convicted as a juvenile in 1992 for robbing and killing in 1991 a Columbus man, Marion Gilbert. McKnight was released from the Ohio Department of Youth Services when he turned 21.
      McKnight is scheduled to go on trial for the murders of both students on 23 September 2002. But, on 08 August 2002, Vinton County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Simmons rules that prosecutors may not seek the death penalty because the county cannot afford the cost of a public defender and defense investigators (at least $75'000) out of its $2.7 million general fund budget. Vinton County, where the trial is to be held, is Ohio's most sparsely populated county (12'800), and its unemployment rate is usually double the state average. [Geographical coordinates from Bali Online]
2000: 22 persons by explosions at a fireworks warehouse in the Netherlands; nearly 1000 are injured.1987 Effie Samuel, who was born on 25 November 1876.
1979 Annette Faron, who was born on 15 February 1869.
1970: 6 Blacks (5 killed by cops) in race riots in Augusta, Georgia.
1970 Henri Léopold Hayden, French artist born on 25 December 1883. — Paysage Beka
1969 Unsafe-at-any-speed Corvair       ^top^
      Chevrolet announces that it will discontinue production of the Corvair. The Corvair, which had come under heavy attack in Ralph Nader's 1965 Unsafe At Any Speed, never achieved great success, thanks mostly to its reputation for poor safety. Nader called the Corvair "one of the nastiest-handling cars ever built." The front-wheel drive model was accused of flipping over in moderately severe accident conditions.
      In the end, over five hundred individual court cases dealing with the Corvair were filed against General Motors. GM never lost one of these cases, although it did settle out of court in a number of them. Debate continues over whether or not the Corvair was actually an unsafe car. Some contend that the front-wheel drive and the heavy horsepower of the car were too much for some drivers to handle.
      Whatever the case, the public's attitude toward the Big Three car executives changed dramatically during the course of the debate over Nader's book. The insidious tactics used by GM to silence Nader may have been more damaging to the company's reputation than the poor handling of the Corvair. In the end, the debate killed the sale of the Corvair, and its discontinuation followed a 200 percent decrease in the model's sales between 1965 and 1969.
1941 Axel von Blomberg, Hitler's envoy to Iraq, shot dead on arrival       ^top^
      Adolf Hitler sends two bombers to Iraq to support Rashid Ali al-Gailani in his revolt against Britain, which is trying to enforce a previously agreed upon Anglo-Iraqi alliance.
      At the start of World War II, Iraqi Prime Minister General Nuri as-Said had severed ties with Germany and signed a cooperation pact with Great Britain.
      In April 1941, the Said government was overthrown by Ali, an anti-British general, who proceeded to cut off the British oil pipeline to the Mediterranean. Britain fought back by landing a brigade on the Persian Gulf, successfully fending off 9000 Iraqi soldiers. Ali retaliated by sealing off the British airbase at Habbaniya.
      Hitler, elated at the grief the British enemy was enduring in the Middle East, began sending arms, via Syria, as well as military experts, to aid Ali in his revolt. On May 12, Hitler sends to Iraq, along with the two bombers, air force major Axel von Blomberg, to act as a liaison between Iraq and Germany. Blomberg arrives in the middle of an air battle between Iraqi and British fighters and is shot dead by a stray British bullet.
      By the end of the month, Iraq had surrendered, and Britain re-established the terms of the original 1930 cooperation pact. A pro-British government formed, with a cabinet led by former Prime Minister Said. Iraq went on to become a valuable resource for British and US forces in the region and in January 1942 became the first independent Muslim state to declare war on the Axis powers.
1916 Sean MacDiarmada, 31, and James Connolly, 47, Irish patriots, Easter Rising leaders, executed by British firing squad.
1911 Constant Mayer, French artist born on 04 October 1832.
1897 Willem Roelofs I, Dutch painter born on 10 March 1822. — Photo of Reolofs MORE ON ROELOFS AT ART “4” MAYLINKSAn Approaching Storm (1850, 90x140cm) — A Sunlit River Landscape With Cows WateringFran Utrecht
1864 Rebs and Yanks butcher each other at Spotsylvania.       ^top^
      Close-range firing and hand-to-hand combat at Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia, result in one of the most brutal battles of the Civil War. After the Battle of the Wilderness (05 May - 06 May), Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee raced respective Union and Confederate forces southward. Grant aimed his army some 20 km southeast of the Wilderness, toward the critical crossroads of Spotsylvania Court House. Sensing Grant's plan, Lee sent part of his army on a furious night march to secure the road junction before the Union soldiers got there. The Confederates soon constructed an 8-km long system of entrenchments in the shape of an inverted U. On 10 May, Grant began to attack Lee's position at Spotsylvania. After achieving a temporary breakthrough at the Rebel center, Grant was convinced that a weakness existed there, as the bend of the Confederate line dispersed their fire.
      At dawn on 12 May, Union General Winfield Scott Hancock's troops emerge from the fog and overrun the Rebel trenches, taking nearly 3000 prisoners and more than a dozen cannons. While the Yankees erupted in celebration, the Confederates counterattacked and began to drive the Federals back. The battle raged for over 20 hours along the center of the Confederate line — the top of the inverted U — which became known as the "Bloody Angle." Lee's men eventually constructed a second line of defense behind the original Rebel trenches, and fighting ceased just before dawn on 13 May.
      Around the Bloody Angle, the dead lay five deep, and bodies had to be moved from the trenches to make room for the living. The action around Spotsylvania shocked even the grizzled veterans of the two great armies. Said one officer, "I never expect to be fully believed when I tell what I saw of the horrors of Spotsylvania." And yet the battle was not done; the armies slugged it out for another week. In spite of his losses, Grant persisted, writing to General Henry Halleck in Washington, "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."
1864 Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart, 31, mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern battle the previous day.
1856 Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, French mathematician and astronomer born on 02 February 1786. He worked on the foundations of matrix theory. In 1812 he discovered the familiar rule for matrix multiplication. Binet was a man of modest manner and a devout Catholic.
1833 Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, French artist born on 20 April 1762.
1829 Maximilien Joseph Wagenbaur, French artist born on 28 July 1774.
Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:       ^top^
1794 (23 floréal an II):

POQUAT Jacques Joseph, 38 ans, cabaretier, né et domicilié à Lyon (Rhône), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par la commission révolutionnaire de Lyon.
THIBAUD François, (dit Bendessein), marchand mercier, domicilié à Peillac (Morbihan), par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme séditieux.
VILARME Martin, ouvrier en soie, domicilié à Bager (Ain), comme brigand de la Vendée, par la commission militaire de Grandville
GARNIER Sébastien, ex curé, domicilié à Germaincilliers, département de la Haute Marne, par le tribunal criminel dudit département comme réfractaire à la Loi.
CLASSES Pierre, 21 ans, né à Anvers, demeurant à Lille, lieutenant colonel du 2° bataillon belge, à Arras
LEMAIRE Aldegonde, 43 ans, née et demeurant à Béthune, à Arras
LABY Charles, 39 ans, né à Pont à Vendin, cordonnier, époux de Petit Henriette, guillotiné à Arras
Domiciliés dans le département des Côtes-du-Nord, par le tribunal criminel dudit département:
LEROY Pierre, cordonnier, domicilié à Trégrom, comme contre-révolutionnaire
     ... domiciliés à Plouaret, canton de Lannion:
BARBES Jean, comme séditieux
GEFFROY François, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
LEGOFF Pierre, comme contre révolutionnaire
LEJEUNE Jean, comme complice de séditieux.
PITOT Yves, père, comme séditieux
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire séant à Cambray (Nord):
BISIAUX Marie Anne Joseph, domestique, comme ayant procuré des secours à l'ennemi.
BONNEFOND Marguerite, femme Beslaër, comme traître à la patrie.
DEBUT Reine Cécile, veuve Pristou, marchande, domicilié à Cambray, comme traître à la patrie, et ayant favorisé l'émigration de son fils.
MOREAU Louis, malquinier, comme traître à la patrie, et ayant discrédité les assignats.
COLLEAUX Maximilien, marchand de filets, comme convaincu d'espionnage.
LEDUC DE ST AUBERT Auguste, mulquinier, comme convaincu d'espionnage.
LAMAND Ferdinand, comme ayant porté une dépêche au duc d'Yorck.
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
VOILLERAUT Joseph Didier, 62 ans, ex curé de Montargis, natif de Landres (Haute-Marne), domicilié à Montargis (Loiret), comme convaincu d'avoir, par des discours fanatiques, favorisé les complots liberticides du tyran Capet.
BOCQUENET Nicolas, François, 52 ans, né à Coiffy (Haute Marne), homme de loi, domicilié à Chaumont (Haute Marne), comme conspirateur.
LASTIE Hugues, ex comte, 74 ans, né à St Martin (Cantal), domicilié à Lescure, même département, comme conspirateur.
MANDAT A. Cl; Félicité, 26 ans, femme Thomasin, fille de Mandat officier au régiment des gardes françaises, ex noble née à Neuilly (Haute Marne), domiciliée à St Dizier, même département, comme conspiratrice.
DIACON Pierre, 50 ans, natif de Colombier, près de Neufchâtel en Suisse, de l'hôtel de la guerre à Versailles, inspecteur des armes à feu à l'Arsenal, domicilié à Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
RACLET Pierre, 70 ans, natif de Dijon (Côte-d’Or), ex directeur de la régie générale, domicilié à Sommevoire (Haute Marne), comme contre-révolutionnaire.
THOMASSIN Alexandre, 44 ans, ex-noble, né et domicilié à St Dizie (Haute-Marne), comme contre-révolutionnaire.
DOUET Jean Claude, ex fermier général, âgé de 73 ans, né à Lyon (Rhône), domicilié à Paris, comme complice d'un complot contre le Peuple français, en mettant dans le tabac de l'eau et des ingrédients nuisibles à la santé des citoyens.
LEDET François, cordonnier, soumissionnaire et fournisseur de République, âgé de 28 ans, né à Ganvelle (Somme), domicilié à la Chapelle-Franciade (Seine), comme fournisseur infidèle.
1742 Joseph Privat de Molières, French mathematician and physicist born in 1677. Author of Leçons de mathématiques (1726), and Leçons de physique (4 volumes, 1734-1739).
1682 Michelangelo Ricci, Roman mathematician, Papal government official, made a lay cardinal in 1681. He was born on 30 January 1619.
1615 Cornelis Floris de Vriendt III, Flemish artist born in 1516.
1310 Fifty-four Knights Templars, burned at the stake as heretics in France. Established during the Crusades to protect pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land, this wealthy military order came into increasing conflict the greedy French kings, until pope Clement V officially dissolved it in 1312 at the Council of Vienna.
Births which occurred on a May 12:       ^top^
1925 Yogi Berra, US baseball player, manager.
1925 Yogi Berra, US baseball player, manager.       ^top^
      Berra was a long time catcher for the N.Y. Yankees (1946-63). But he is best known (by me at least) for his "Berraisms," such as:
You can observe a lot just by watching.
How can you think and hit at the same time?
When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.
I don't want to make the wrong mistake.
It ain't over 'til it's over.
You can observe a lot just by watching.
How can you think and hit at the same time?
When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.
It was dejà vu all over again.
We have deep depth.
It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
I didn't say the things I said.
If the fans don't come out to the ball park, you can't stop them.
If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is
You have to give 100% in the first half of the game. If that isn't enough, in the second half, you have to give what is left.
Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six.
I want to thank all those who made this night necessary.
I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early.
You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.
It's pretty far, but it doesn't seem like it.
It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.
The only color I don't have is navy brown.
It gets late early out there.
If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer.
I wish I had an answer to that because I'm getting tired of answering that question.
Foresight is always better, afterward.
Ninety percent of the game is half mental.
Most everybody knows me by my face.
Listen up, because I've got nothing to say and I'm only going to say it once.”
(When asked to compare himself to Yogi, his son Dale responded: “Our similarities are different.”).
1907 Sidney N. Correll, founder and first General Director (1946-1971) of United World Mission, Inc. This evangelical missions organization is involved worldwide in evangelism, church planting and Christian education.
1902 Frank Yates, English mathematician who died on 17 June 1994.
1900 Wilhelm Steinitz Prague, chess champion (1866-1894)
1886 Albert Saverys (or Saverijs), Belgian artist who died on 29 April 1964.
1885 Mario Sironi, Italian artist who died in 1961. — LINKS
1870 Emma Wilson, who would die on 12 October 1983.
1868 Harry (or Ary, Herman) Roseland, US artist who died in 1950.
1865 Alexis Vollon, French artist who died in 1945.
1865 Thomas Scott Fiske, US mathematician who died on 10 January 1944. He founded the American Mathematical Society in 1888.
1857 Oskar Bolza, German mathematician and psychologist of religion, who died on 05 July 1942. He worked on function theory, integral equations, and the calculus of variations. Author of Lectures on the Calculus of Variations (1908).
1857 Emilio Boggio, Venezuelan French artist who died in June 1920.
1854 Walter Dendy Sadler, British painter who died on 13 November 1923. MORE ON SADLER AT ART “4” MAY London to York - Time's Up GentlemenPlaintiff and DefendantThe Monk's RepastA Good StorySweetheartsThursday
1851 Samuel Dickstein, Polish patriot and mathematician who died on 29 September 1939 in a Nazi German bombing of Warsaw.
1845 Pierre René Jean Baptiste Henri Brocard, French army officer, meteorologist, and mathematician who died on 16 January 1922. He is best remembered for his work on the triangle. The Brocard points of a triangle ABC are O, O' where OAB, OBC and OCA and the angles O'BA, O'CB and O'AC are equal. [Draw a circle tangent to AB at A passing through C; another tangent to BC at B passing through A; a third tangent to CA at C passing through B. They are concurrent at O.] Angle OAB is called the Brocard angle and satisfies cot OAB = cot A + cot B + cot C.
1842 Jules Massenet Montaud France, composer (Manon, Le Cid)
1835 Luc Raphaël Ponson, French artist who died on 31 January 1904.
1828 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in London, poet and painter who died on 09 April 1882. — ROSSETTI ONLINE: The Rossetti Archive //— writings: Selected Works and Criticism.The Blessed DamozelThe House of Life Jenny Poems (first edition; 1870) (illustrated) — translator of Bürger's Lenore //— artwork: — LINKS How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors, and Sir Percival were Fed with the Sanc Grael; But Sir Percival's Sister Died by the WaySybilla PalmiferaVenus Verticordia The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice: Dante Drawing the AngelDante's Vision of Rachel and LeahBeata BeatrixDante's Dream at the Time of the Death of BeatriceProserpineMonna VannaMarianaLa GhirlandataThe Day Dream MORE ON ROSSETTI AT ART “4” MAY
1826 Giovanni “Nino” Costa, Italian artist who died in 1903.
1820 Florence Nightingale Florence, Italy, (health activist, nurse: promoted the nursing profession, contributed to modern nursing procedures, founded Nightingale Training School for Nurses; author: Notes on Nursing; nurse in the Crimean War)
1812 Edward Lear, England, landscape painter, writer of nonsense verse, who died on 29 January 1888. — MORE ON LEAR AT ART “4” MAY — ILLUSTRATED WRITINGS BY LEAR ONLINE: A Book of NonsenseLaughable Lyrics: A Fourth Book of Nonsense Poems, Songs, Botany, Music, Etc.More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, Etc. — Queery Leary Nonsense: A Lear Nonsense Book. — not illustrated: A Book of Nonsense —//— ARTWORK BY LEAR ONLINE: LINKS The Pyramids Road, GhizehCivita Castellana Masada
1745 Jens Juel, Danish painter who died on 27 December 1802. — MORE ON JUEL AT ART “4” MAYLINKS Jean-Armand TronchinMadame de PraginsA Strom Brewing behind a Farmhouse in ZealandA Noblewoman with her Son — A Running BoyIsabelle de Charrière:: Mme de Charrière [1740-1805] was a writer.
1737 Hendrik de Meyer II, Dutch painter who died in 1793. — Rustic Watermill in a Gothic Ruin (1778, 30x40cm)
1662 Jan Frans Bloemen (or Blommen) van Orizonte, Flemish artist who died in 1749. — LINKS
1630 Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg (or Hardenberg), Flemish painter who died in 1676. — LINKS
Holidays Abbotsbury Dorsetshire England : Garland Day / Finland : Snellman Day (1806) / Khmer Republic : Constitution Day (1972) / US : National Hospital Day (1921)

Religious Observances Bhuddist-Burma : Buddha's Birthday / RC : St Domitilla, martyr / RC : SS Nereus, Achilleus martyrs (opt) / RC : St Pancras, Roman martyr (opt)

Thought for the day: “No woman should imitate men; men are not worth it.”
TO THE TOP
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO “HISTORY 4 2DAY”
http://h42day.0catch.com/history/h4may/h4may12.html
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/all42day/history/h4may/h4may12.html
http://www.geocities.com/history4may/history/h4may/h4may12.html

updated Thursday 15-May-2003 4:02 UT
safe site
site safe for children safe site